re: Atheism article

If you want to replace the bare link footnotes of the Atheism article with more descriptive non-bare links, that would be most welcome. I am involved in some major projects right now and I am pressed for time. Conservative 13:00, 16 July 2014 (EDT)

Thank you again for all your work on the atheism article. It's appearance looks noticeably better plus it is more informative. Conservative 00:43, 15 January 2015 (EST)

You're welcome. I also like the article and appreciate all the research you've done for it. VargasMilan 00:47, 15 January 2015 (EST)

Thanks. I don't think I would do the research again. Atheism is a rather stale topic and its prospects in terms of adherents looks poor in the 21st century. I agree with John Updike who said, "Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic un-interestingness as an intellectual position." If I knew the New Atheism was just a fad, I wouldn't have bothered. In hindsight, it has a lot of indicators that it was merely a fad.

My research had a The Bridge on the River Kwai/Gestalt principle like element to it. Once I started the task, I wanted to finish it. :) Conservative 01:13, 15 January 2015 (EST)

You gathered in one place a lot of supporting evidence that otherwise would have been scattered all over the internet and of limited use. I think you deserve a kudos for that. VargasMilan 01:17, 15 January 2015 (EST)

I did put a fly in the evangelical/militant atheist soup by putting this evidence together in one place. And a good Christian apologetics team has both an offense/defense (Saying why other worldviews are wrong and why Christianity is correct). So some good came out of it. But there is the issue of the opportunity cost. I could have used the time to advance other causes (Christian evangelism, anti-slavery efforts, anti-poverty efforts, etc. etc.). If you look HERE and HEREand HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and at the global atheism article, it does seem like atheism is losing steam in the world, the US, the UK and Australia in recent years.

Part of this downward trend is due to Christian efforts and a lot of it is due to atheists shooting themselves in the foot through their ill behavior and infighting (see: Atheist movement and Elevatorgate). In addition, the more we know about the physical world and about the nature of man, the less plausible atheism is. In addition, the atheist community has largely allied itself with the left end of the political spectrum and in recent years, the left has not fared very well. And high sovereign debt around the world in developed countries, makes the left's prospects dimmer. Austerity measures are often not something a country chooses. It is something that is forced upon them. And austerity measures and leftism are not a good match. Conservative 17:01, 15 January 2015 (EST)

I just noticed something. If you look at those graphs, you will see that upward part of the graphs correlate with the rise of New Atheism and the political left (Obama, etc. etc.), but the descent of the graphs is correlated with the fall of the New Atheism and the political left losing favor. I didn't notice the political aspect until just now. Christendom has a higher degree of diversity in terms of politics due to its high geographic diversity. Like I am politically to the right within the multiple Christian editors of User: Conservate-ism and politically to the right of former admin Philip Rayment for example. Conservative 17:20, 15 January 2015 (EST)

Great job and small request

You are doing a superb job as far as the atheism footnotes.

I have a small request as far as the atheism article footnotes. For various reasons, I try to keep all the links on the page highly relevant. Like all the links going to the specific source pages. So if you could avoid the links going to the home pages of the news websites (or other websites), I would appreciate it.

The article is going to look fantastic when the footnoting is finished and it will be more helpful to readers as well. Conservative 21:28, 17 July 2014 (EDT)

Okay, I'll compress them if you like. Thanks for the compliments. VargasMilan 21:40, 17 July 2014 (EDT)

OK, I just compressed one. The footnote to the Marxism website. You can see what I did. Conservative 21:59, 17 July 2014 (EDT)

re: two other articles

After you finish footnoting the atheism article, consider footnoting the evolution and homosexuality articles because those articles are popular articles too. Conservative 20:11, 20 July 2014 (EDT)

footnotes - atheism article

The only reason I changed one of the footnotes in the article is because I found a better source. Your footnoting is excellent and makes the article more user friendly which is important. Conservative 17:29, 21 July 2014 (EDT)

Thank you, I was just about to ask you about that change. And thank you for the compliments. VargasMilan 17:33, 21 July 2014 (EDT)

The Evolution article is probably the most popular article on this website. And the topic is related to atheism too. Would you like to do the footnoting for the evolution article too? Conservative 21:43, 28 July 2014 (EDT)

That one is very long. I would prefer to work on some of the smaller "Liberal characteristics and traits" articles first. VargasMilan 00:01, 29 July 2014 (EDT)

OK. There is an article which has under 50 footnotes and over 1,000,000 page views. The liberal article. This would be an excellent candidate to do better footnoting. Conservative 01:46, 29 July 2014 (EDT)

spammer on the loose

We now have confirmation direct from Andy. It's on my talk page. Go have a look. He appreciates your work. (As do I.) SamHB 01:01, 29 September 2014 (EDT)

News maybe?

I found this article on cracked.com mentioning 6 studies that proves that not all fields of science are trustworthy and that some scientists will do what they can to get more funds for their "research". I'm not 100% sure if it's trustworthy, but maybe after proofreading it you guys could use this in your news or global warming article somewhere. MontanaMax 01:20, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

Thanks, I'll look into it. But how do you think we would look linking to Cracked on the front page? VargasMilan 01:25, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I guess I understand, but its rare to see a usually liberal/gray site admit something like this. MontanaMax 01:28, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

They also did a piece something like "10 things you didn't know about life behind the iron curtain" featuring a writer who lived in Romania. VargasMilan 01:36, 30 September 2014 (EDT)

I suggest you be vigilant with the main page as some may try to vandalize it with crude drawings using this "hidden" graffiti program -> http://dudl.me/ Vandals use it all the time on major sites. -MontanaMax 16:54, 3 October 2014 (EDT)

Relativity

Thanks for calling that missing counterexample to my attention, and thereby (that means "because of what preceded" :-) keeping the numbering consistent. I'll get on it when I have the time. It will be a fairly straightforward one. In fact, there have been very few truly original "counterexamples" lately. I will try to eschew sesquipedalian expressions, and generally avoid "a stance of withering patrician disdain for the untutored mind" :-) Though such disdain is often hard to avoid on that page :-) SamHB 12:13, 12 October 2014 (EDT)

There's a lot to be said for self-confidence I suppose. Have at it. VargasMilan 13:09, 12 October 2014 (EDT)

another spammer on the loose

No hard feelings, I hope?

I really do respect you. And I see that, with your recent edits to the National debt, along with many other things, you really are a subject matter expert, and willing to use that expertise. There are a lot of people that just fix punctuation and stuff, in what appears to be just an attempt to curry favor.

Now if I could just figure out what "withering patrician disdain" means!

Do a search of the phrase in Conservapedia! It's one of Conservative's favorite quotes. You'll see who the original missive was actually aimed at without the substitution of your name. VargasMilan 00:25, 1 December 2014 (EST)

My goodness, you're right! I hadn't thought of that. Amazing. The way so much of his garbage writing is. SamHB 00:40, 1 December 2014 (EST)

Proper use of mainpage talk

OK, I'm going to follow your example, and try to get people to use main talk for discussion of the main page content only, and the community portal for general discussion, flaming, arguing, etc. We'll see how that goes. Maybe people are just too set in their ways, and they'll go back to the old way.

By the way, I have a vague recollection of someone fixing the lose vs. loose error recently, and I think it was you. If so, thank you. I fear that I am loosing my mind over this. SamHB 17:31, 6 December 2014 (EST)

The switch over to the community portal seems to be going extremely well. I'm pleased that something I did is already getting people to use the right page. By the way, at the very bottom you will see a note by me about a user ("TheonlySIL", or whatever) that really, really, really desires to be blocked. Just sayin' SamHB 21:51, 6 December 2014 (EST)

Project

Would you like to collaborate with other editors on a wiki project to help Conservapedia be a strong resource for a given topic.

Survivalblog

Thank you for your edits. Don't you think that this edit [3] was rather rambling to the point of distracting the reader from what we are trying to say? Could you please consider rewriting it for clarity? I think the reader can get the idea without a parody of the blog's writing style. Many thanks, Wschact 01:25, 13 January 2015 (EST)

Your edit improves things. It would be my preference to have moved the discussion to a general overview article like Survivalism and the long quote to Examples of Bias in Wikipedia, but I am dropping my concerns. Again, many thanks, Wschact 01:53, 13 January 2015 (EST)

Conservative vouched for this person.

Could you give me a link to this? Thanks. --AugustO 01:50, 14 January 2015 (EST)

They edited together consecutively within the space of one or two minutes. VargasMilan 01:55, 14 January 2015 (EST)

Fixed typo on main page

I fixed the typo on the main page. Thanks. Conservative 03:20, 31 March 2015 (EDT)

References

I don't understand ...

Why do you keep reverting my edits to the Obama and Unemployment page? We all know that unemployment has fallen (albeit with a lowering workforce participation), why shouldn't the article reflect that?

I updated the Barack Obama and United States Unemployment article

I just sent you an email

VargasMilan, I just sent you an email. Conservative 18:18, 9 May 2015 (EDT)

Thanks for the welcome. I sent you a reply regarding what you said in your e-mail. VargasMilan 19:05, 9 May 2015 (EDT)

OK. I just sent you a followup email. Conservative 20:30, 9 May 2015 (EDT)

Thank you. I will check into those to see if there's anything I've missed from my own research. VargasMilan 20:40, 9 May 2015 (EDT)

OK. I just sent you a final email to tie things up as far as our recent discussions. Conservative 05:24, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Inserting false information

When you banned me you put as the reason for my ban, "inserting false information", what was the false information I inserted? I just want to know so that I'm more careful and do not do the same thing again this time. Burke39 23:53, 11 May 2015 (EDT)

Also, what was my bad behavior in general? I want to make sure I know what mistakes to avoid in the future.Burke39 00:17, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Well the CNN article was one. I just remember there being a number of problems. I believe I noted the problems in the edit summaries.

When you asked about edits to the LDS article, I thought you were referring to the talk page, but in the article you made a mistake there too that I noted in the edit summary. VargasMilan 00:29, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

But thank you for your positive contributions. VargasMilan 00:44, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Was a feeling that my editing was "liberal" part of the reason I was banned, or was it more so for poorly sourcing what I wrote? Because when I saw the "creepy bizarre/liberal sex topic quota" I thought that comment was odd because I'm actually far right politically on most other issues, although I guess I might be less conservative than this site in that one area. Burke39 00:53, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

You were behaving like a liberal spammer. The results of the edits being somewhat liberal made them seem more deliberate.

As for the comment, I'd just be speculating. It was User:Conservative who said it. VargasMilan 01:06, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

I think it might have been because of edits like this,[4], I was making a positive statement in this edit, not a normative one. A positive statement is a neutral statement of fact that is not related to issues of right or wrong, while a normative statement refers to statements of fact that involve moral judgements. I was not saying pedophilia was ok in that edit, I was saying that I did not agree all religions condemned it, because numerous sources have said that Mohammad married a child and that the Talmud (which is a book some Jewish denominations use as a supplement to the Bible) allowed child marriage, I was not saying that what Mohammad allegedly did was right or that what the Talmud allegedly said was right, I was saying that because numerous sources have said that, the statement that all religions condemn pedophilia is questionable. That's not the same thing as saying pedophilia is ok, that's not what I was saying. And when I removed the part about homosexuals being connected to the pedophile advocates from the article, the reason was because homosexuality isn't the same thing as pedophilia, and because the advocates I saw mentioned looked like they were more so advocating a slight reduction in the legal age for sex, not legalizing pedophilia. I was not saying that I approved of homosexuality or that I agreed with their proposals. In the Alfred Kinsey article, when I removed the part saying he advocated adult sexual abuse of children, I did not remove it because it was not true, but because it did not have a source [5]. I was not saying the statement was incorrect or defending Kinsey in any way. In the ephebophilia article,when I said that was not a problem [6], I was going by what the reliable sources says, that attraction includes attraction to legal adults, 18-19 year olds, so it isn't the same thing as pedophilia, saying its not a sexual perversion is not the same thing as saying it would be appropriate to act on it. So I think some of my edits were misinterpreted. Burke39 01:25, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Like I said, they, perhaps incidentally, lined up on the side of liberalization. Because...treating human sexuality positively rather than normatively is in itself a liberal red flag. Beginning with Havelock Ellis. VargasMilan 01:39, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Ok, that is true. I remember Sigmund Freud, another advocate of sexual perversion whose writings I find highly disturbing, saying that he was not concerned with value judgements, and I think that is disgusting to ignore a normative role completely, because then things as heinous as pedophilia or sadism become acceptable. But when I made that statement about my statement about religious views on pedophilia being positive not normative, I was not saying I would treat the subject in general positively. It should be treated normatively because pedophilic acts are heinous and the attraction is disordered. I was just making the positive statement that some religions seemed to condone it, I was not advocating treating the topic in general in a positive way, in fact I maybe even should have followed making that statement by making clear with a normative statement that if a religion condones something that heinous, it is doing something morally repugnant and wrong. Burke39 01:47, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Christian Science

[7] Wikipedia begins its article about Christian Science with the statement, "It was developed in 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy" without saying "or as her adherents would prefer to say, discovered." I'm not going to edit war about this, but adding the second statement seems redundant and unencyclopedic to me. Saying that she founded does not imply that its a false religion, it just says that she is the person who started the religion in this world. Burke39 01:32, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Did you read my edit summary? She is presented by the sect as discovering the laws of spiritual forces rather than as treating symptoms. VargasMilan 01:39, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

I did read it, I just don't agree that its necessary to put that in the lead. I don't think saying she started the religion in this world, implies that her claims that she discovered spiritual laws are false. And I think its less redundant. Burke39 01:49, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

I don't know, doesn't it kind of provide a flash of insight that would make the reader interested to read more? VargasMilan 01:57, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Maybe, but it does not look like its neutral, it looks like its endorsing the religion's claims. Is the purpose of the article to neutrally cover the church, or to be an advertisement for the church? If the purpose is the former, then it does not make sense to make that the first sentence. Anyway, it still is redundant, that's the main problem I have with it. I know this encyclopedia is not supposed to be neutral the way wikipedia allegedly is, but I still think there should be some level of neutrality in reporting information here. Burke39 02:01, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

But if the article can get a conservative to personally understand the appeal, it might put a conservative more on guard against its potential religious unorthodoxy as described later in the article. VargasMilan 02:10, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Honestly, to me it looked like the statement was endorsing Christian Science as the correct religion. (Since it seems like my saying the Talmud condoned pedophilia lead to people mistakenly viewing me as a pedophile advocate, I will clarify that I'm not saying I think Christian Science is true, I'm saying it looked to me like the article was saying that). Burke39 02:13, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Soviet Union

The article about the Soviet Union,[8], has a photograph of a cat in it. That just seems kind of bizarre and off topic to me. But I'm not going to remove it myself because I don't want to cause problems. But my opinion is that it should be removed. What do you think? Burke39 02:05, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

It does seem strange. But it was added by the same administrator who imposed your topic ban. He'd think you were getting even with him, so you'd better ask him about it first. VargasMilan 02:17, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

Thanks

for showing me (by example in the Ronald Reagan page) how to group multiple references together. Our little dust-up over the number 111 would not have happened if I had read them all. Sorry about that. Be that as it may, I'm using that technique in the Robert Dicke page. SamHB 22:17, 20 May 2015 (EDT)

You're welcome. There's a tutorial page on Conservapedia that I learned it from, but I don't where that page is now. VargasMilan 01:15, 21 May 2015 (EDT)

You also have the problem of not being able to find your way around the help pages? I can never find the really tricky things. I know how to use square brackets and double single quotes and stuff, but I can never remember complicated things like footnotes and tables, so I usually try to find a page that has it, and copy it. So, I've been using a page of handwritten notes. I finally typed it in. It's How_to_put_links_and_footnotes_into_your_articles. Enjoy. SamHB 23:03, 23 May 2015 (EDT)

E=mc^2

The reason I called your edit malicious is that it is not true that I was just sneaking in previous material. I rewrote the Cockcroft/Walton paragraph yet again. Your edit comment said that I was just doing the same thing again. I wasn't. You need to read edits before you just blindly revert them. The same thing goes for your earlier reversion, when you put a redundant pair of sentences back in. You need to pay attention. Many aspects of your recent behavior suggest that you are allowing some kind of personal vendetta to negatively impact your contributions to CP.

So now let's go through the Cockcroft/Walton paragraph paragraph in detail:

"In 1932 an English and an Irish physicist, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton ...."

Do you dispute their nationality? Do you dispute that it was a nuclear transmutation? Do you dispute that it was the first? Do you dispute that they won the Nobel Prize for it?

"their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei ...."

Do you dispute that the Nobel announcement said that?

"This experiment is replicated ... hundreds of times each year."

(That comment, in fact almost all of this paragraph was written by AugustO, as part of his battle with Andy, not by me. AugustO and I have been fighting over this in email.)

Do you dispute that the experiment is frequently replicated?

"Neither the Nobel Committee nor the prize recipients made any claim to verify ....."

(This is the thing I was specifically trying to clarify) Do you dispute that verifying E=mc^2 was the not the goal of either the experiment or the Nobel Committee?

"... the equation had already been known and understood for many years ..."

Do you dispute that? Atomic weights and mass defects ("packing fractions") had been known since the early 30's. Do you dispute that? Can you explain, in your own words, how the awareness of atomic weights and mass defects evolved in the early decades of the 20th century?

"analysis of the experiment does in fact verify the equation."

Do you dispute that? Did you read AugustO's explanation? Have you looked at a table of atomic weights?

You accuse me of being malicious and destructive? You suddenly level accusations of negligence on my part and just as suddenly declare the accusations to be settled. Is that how carelessly you treat the truths of science as well?

Here's another example: AugustO and Andy are discussing the nature of the verification of the equation. Andy says "Do you really think that one experiment from long ago "proved" the formula as a fundamental law of nature?" Then you rush in all of a sudden to make sure that there is a statement in the article that insists the equation is already "verified"—while the meaning of that verification is simulataneously being discussed! Is that how you treat the truths of science, by judging the ones to be true as those belonging to whomever can cram in their assertions first?

Here's a third example: Once you can't cram in your assertions the first, you label my actions malicious and destructive as if I were harming the article, but really I'm just harming your ability to gain the upper hand. You immediately turn and chop the statement I was objecting to into pieces in fatuous eagerness to pursue an effort to pick my brain to see where you can gain the advantage against Andy in other ways. Is that how you treat the truths of science, that that science should be whatever is left over after one person carries out an effort to argumentively overpower another and that might makes right science? VargasMilan 00:14, 15 June 2015 (EDT)

sent you an email

I sent you an email. Please check your email.

Spacetime, and curvature thereof.

OK, accept your latest version. In fact, I just made an edit that made no change at all to the article, but had the edit comment "I accept that. So we're OK, right?". But the oh-so-smart wiki software apparently drops any edit that makes no changes to the text. So I'm telling you here.

re: Militant atheism article

VargasMilan,

Could you please condense the amount of footnotes appearing the first paragraph of the article militant atheism. Like the first sentence ends in 6 footnotes which looks horrible. That is too many and is distracting. I know there is a way to have the same number of footnotes appearing at the bottom, but just have the number of footnotes appearing in the text be less. Conservative 15:40, 25 June 2015 (EDT)

That looks like an interesting article. Are you going to promote it soon? If it is urgent I can do some work on it, but I am actually on vacation until Tuesday. Don't hesitate to respond via e-mail if you need to and take care. VargasMilan 02:32, 26 June 2015 (EDT)

It is not urgent and can wait until Tuesday. It is a nice article. At this time, I have some things to attend to so I don't have any plans to promote the article soon. Conservative 07:33, 26 June 2015 (EDT)

Don't forget about tidying up the opening sentence of militant atheism so it doesn't appear as if there are 6 footnotes for that sentence in the text for that sentence. You can have 6 footnotes show up after someone clicks the footnote, but I don't want so many footnotes appearing in the sentence when you first read it. Thanks again for all your assistance. Conservative 21:05, 3 July 2015 (EDT)

Actually, I just want the footnoting for the first sentence of the article militant atheism fixed so it appears as if there are 1-3 footnotes at first glance. Of course, once they click a footnote, it can consist of more than one footnote at the bottom of the page.

You can keep the rest of the footnoting of the article the same. Just fix the first sentence.

Is the footnoting formatting fix for the first sentence of the militant atheism article an easy fix or is the authors frequent use of a lot of text in his footnotes a big problem as far as fixing the footnoting.

I think 6 footnotes appearing in the text for one sentence is excessive so I want to hide them in the bottom of the page. Ideally, I would want 1-3 footnotes appearing in the body of the text for the first sentence. Conservative 19:48, 5 July 2015 (EDT)

They get recombined with later footnotes, and these later footnotes get connected with still later footnotes, so they and the later footnotes need to be duplicated. I am trying what I think is the fastest way, and that is to work from the bottom up. This isn't some obscure article; it was obviously very well documented by you and others, so I'm sure the effort has high enough priority to be well worth while. VargasMilan 18:04, 7 July 2015 (EDT)

I'm halfway through; it should take three and a half hours at the very most. I'll be able to spend a few hours on them tonight and two hours tomorrow night to take care of whatever's left. VargasMilan 18:13, 7 July 2015 (EDT)

OK. The only reason I want this done is have the first sentence appear as if it has 1 to 3 footnotes. 6 footnotes in the key first sentence does not look attractive. It is OK if those same 6 footnotes appear on the bottom though. For cosmetic reasons, I just want it to be appear as if 1-3 footnotes as far as the first sentence text. Conservative 19:45, 7 July 2015 (EDT)

Hello User:VargasMilan, I am the main author of the militant atheism article and I appreciate your efforts to improve the formatting of the article. In the style that I wrote the article, because some of my references were used throughout the article, one could simply go to the references section and see all the specific locations in the article where one reference was being used. I am concerned that one may no longer be able to do this with your new formatting. I am okay with User:Conservative's wish to have references combined only in the introduction of the article. However, in the rest of the article, I think it would be best to have the original formatting restored, so that individuals will be able to locate all the places where one reference is being used. What are your thoughts? With regards, AnupamTalk 17:15, 9 July 2015 (EDT)

Another atheism article is coming out probably in July 0f 2015 and then another one in August

Another atheism article is coming out probably in July 0f 2015. And then another one in August of 2015. It is going to be a TERRIBLE summer for atheism this year. Conservative 21:06, 28 June 2015 (EDT)

I look forward to seeing them. I hope they will be on more tasteful subjects than bestiality and of more far-reaching significance than something Richard Dawkins said in an elevator. Otherwise, I doubt that they will contribute to it being a terrible summer for atheism. I can't imagine someone accepting Christianity because of someone's crude remark in an elevator. You really can do better than that. SamHB 00:02, 29 June 2015 (EDT)

SamHB, it wouldn't surprise me if you were an atheist and if you edited another wiki whose editors are often obsessed with me.

Yes, just remove the brackets. Once the red links are gone, the article will look fantastic. Red links are an eyesore and detract from the appearance an article. I think they should be created only if the editor knows they will be filled in soon. Conservative 02:15, 8 July 2015 (EDT)

If you could replace the dead links with live links, it would be appreciated.

Thanks for all your assistance so far.Conservative 17:01, 8 July 2015 (EDT)

Thanks for all your work on the militant atheism article.

There are still a few red links and they are associated with dates. If you know how to get rid of the handful of red links remaining, it would be appreciated.

I am hoping we get the article in perfect shape this month. Conservative 02:28, 9 July 2015 (EDT)

re: final steps for militant atheism article

The main author of the militant atheism article is going to work on the article some more later this month. He likes a lot of the stuff we did.

He put a lot of work into the article and is kind of particular about the article.

Thanks for all your help. And he thanks you as well. Conservative 21:58, 9 July 2015 (EDT)

Conservative and you blocking me.

I do not want to be offensive but every time I come back on here you reblock me. The first time I was unblocked you reblocked me for trolling, but did not specify what you meant by that. The second time I came back Conservative reblocked me for changing the hyphens in my signature on sexuality article talk pages. I do not feel that violated the topic ban in that area, because hyphens surely have nothing to do with the meaning of what I wrote there. Changing my signature is surely not making statements or asking questions of any kind about sexuality.Paul Bustion 15:10, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

Burke39, do not edit any Conservapedia articles related to sexuality and do not edit their talk pages. VargasMilan and I are in agreement that some of the material you created on these topics was errant and we don't want to spend additional time monitoring your edits on topics related to sexuality. Topics related to sexuality are often sensitive and can easily offend readers - especially when they are errant.

Topical areas outside of sexuality are a vast universe of topics. There should be no shortage of contributions you can make to Conservapedia.

VargasMilan and I do not want to discuss this matter with you further. If you want to appeal this matter, please contact the owner of Conservapedia at: User talk:Aschlafly. Conservative 19:53, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

I sent you an email

VargasMilan, I just sent you an email. Conservative 18:48, 19 July 2015 (EDT)

Thank you and new atheism article are coming in August and henceforth

Thank you for your continued efforts to footnote that various atheism articles. It is very much appreciated.

Starting in about August/September and henceforth, additional atheism articles will added to Conservapedia. And the new articles will be original content. Conservative 09:45, 28 July 2015 (EDT)

You're welcome. I have profited from reading your articles, and I am sure many others have as well, so I am looking forward to the new ones. VargasMilan 15:08, 28 July 2015 (EDT)

Xephos

You may wish to look into this individual and their bad faith edit to CreationismFFAF (talk) 23:15, 6 August 2015 (EDT)

Good block

Good recent block based on the similarity of the name. Well done.--Andy Schlafly (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2015 (EDT)

re: Humanperson

The Pope and Climate Change

I don't really understood why you reverted the section about Pope Francis and his views on climate change for "liberal POV". The Pope has really publicly come out and called for actions to fight climate change. He's made it a big part of his pastoral mission. Whether he's right or wrong to hold those views is another question, of course. But it's not a liberal edit to point out that he holds those views. --Whizkid (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2015 (EDT)

They didn't just do that. VargasMilan (talk) 23:57, 28 September 2015 (EDT)

So, I guess the question is, how do we best edit the section to keep the Pope's views on climate change in, while at the same time, removing whatever bias exists? I can try to make an attempt at it tomorrow, if you'd like.--Whizkid (talk) 00:01, 29 September 2015 (EDT)

If you're going to try, I think you should notify the user first. VargasMilan (talk) 00:08, 29 September 2015 (EDT)

re: Brent Bozell

Made the change you requested about Brent Bozell on the main page. Conservative (talk) 09:47, 23 October 2015 (EDT)

Thank you. Bozell somehow has the time to run multiple organizations, and the one you happened to mention there is new to me. VargasMilan (talk) 17:18, 23 October 2015 (EDT)

Marriage article - please explain

Hi Vargas, I'm not sure why you reverted my edits (twice) as you didn't provide an explanation. If you're not happy with the way it's written, why not alter it? If you don't believe that gay marriage is now legal in the United States ... well, I'm afraid it is for the time being. If that changes we can update the article again. Anyway, at least let me know what the issue is so that I may make a better contribution. RyanFT (talk) 07:46, 24 October 2015 (EDT)

You haven't even read the article you're editing. It says in the first paragraph the only true marriages are between a man and a woman. Secondly, even if you accept a very different definition, the court case that determined that isn't a state law because of the constitutional separation of powers. Finally even if you insist that the court case compels a state law, the law doesn't "legalize" this very different definition of marriage; beforehand it wasn't at all illegal to perform a private ceremony based on it. And frankly you don't seem afraid at all to think about marriage in these strange new ways. In fact you seem eager to assert them as quickly and broadly as possible! VargasMilan (talk) 08:20, 24 October 2015 (EDT)

Well, given that the section is entitled the "Modern history of marriage law", how would you suggest I re-word my entry to reflect the Supreme Court's decision? I'm sure you'd agree it is a significant enough event to be mentioned in that section of that article. RyanFT (talk) 08:34, 24 October 2015 (EDT)

The owner of this website noted that the decision is subject to review. It's a significant "event" just as any government overreach is but not necessarily as anything new relating to the definition of marriage. VargasMilan (talk) 08:41, 24 October 2015 (EDT)

In my opinion the Supreme Court decision is noteworthy enough to be included in that section, but so be it. Please note that my other objection was that no explanation for the reversion was offered. That is all. RyanFT (talk) 08:54, 24 October 2015 (EDT)

National debt of the United States

Somebody has been cutting and pasting the same long list of "See alsos" into a bunch of different articles. I think there is a downside to a long list of weakly connected articles into a "see also" list. First, if an article is already a link in the text of the article, there is no need to also put the link in the "see also" list. Second, there is no relationship between the National Debt of the US and the United Nations or Obama donor list. How can we work out what a good "see also" list should be? Is the test, "a reader would feel cheated if he read the 'see also' article and does not see a clear relationship to the National Debt of the US"? Many thanks JDano (talk) 01:32, 6 March 2016 (EST)

Could you please indicate which items on the "see also" list you view as relevant and which you do not. So far, all you said was that some items on the list were relevant. I then put the list in the correct bullet list format, and you reverted instead of deleting items that you believe are not relevant. So, I deleted what I thought were the worst items, and you deleted it without any comment. What do you think. Thank you. JDano (talk) 13:45, 9 March 2016 (EST)

Brest

I have once again been shown to be a failure by that compulsive obsessive bot of DanielB. Instead of just wearing the ignominy, I thought I would transfer some of the shame by asking for help from someone who is interested in France and who obviously has Marianne's interests at heart.

Top conservatives on Twitter

Thank you for this interesting list. Would it be possible to add a source to the article? If there is no source, perhaps we could add a sentence like, "This list is compiled by Conservapedia editors using the data displayed on each Twitter profile page." JDano (talk) 06:06, 7 December 2016 (EST)

Well, I used to have to drive a long way to work, and I used to listen to conservative talk radio. That, and following through all the same people's Twitter connections to the end, indicated to me who the major conservative Twitter participants were as well as enabling me to make a list of strong candidates for those on the lower and lesser-known ranks as they grow.

Since the "conservative civil war", it was shown that not all people who present themselves to be conservatives are all that committed to the "three legs of the conservative stool" as User:Conservative put it. So you can't always trust what is said on their Twitter profile description and, on the other hand, personally reserved but active conservatives who don't want to either stress ideology and/or be targeted for harassment may not include a profession of conservatism at all.

Besides me, there aren't any other users editing that page. I've tried to keep the criteria, beyond the three legs of the stool, as who is "generally accepted as conservative". It may be easier than it sounds, because most of these same candidates are competitively trying to gain followers by performing concrete acts to advance conservatism.

So all this is to show that the source is, besides me, really the large number of Twitter followers itself, because they tend to become targets and have to defend themselves along the argumentative lines of conservative principles. VargasMilan (talk) 23:47, 9 December 2016 (EST)

Merry Christmas

Thank you for all your contributions to Conservaoedia as far your web article content.

Merry Christmas! And have a happy New Year's Day. Conservative (talk) 16:42, 24 December 2016 (EST)

Thanks!

I have never seen a non-profit website go from below 100,000 rank to nearly a 50,000 Alexa ranking in about a year. And Andy payed zero dollars for internet marketing services during this period.

And there is no sign of a nearing web traffic plateau. My guess is that Trump supporters/Trump era and the resulting political waves significantly explains the boost in traffic.

Trump supporters seem very loyal so the traffic boost could be long lasting. It also seems like there is a reawakening of right-wing politics/nationalism that will be long lasting. And right-wing populism and "best of the public" go together like peanut butter and jelly. :) Conservative (talk) 17:30, 13 February 2017 (EST)

Debt bomb under Trump

Ron Paul said the USA is already over the cliff and it is just a matter of time before we hit bottom. I think we will look back and see the 2016 election as "pick your poison." Conservative (talk) 22:42, 14 February 2017 (EST)

Ouch! Let's hope the thriftiness of Trump's Scottish heritage kicks in, like we saw with his cost-saving measures that he extracted from Boeing's manufacture of Air Force One! VargasMilan (talk) 00:52, 15 February 2017 (EST)

Donald Trump is a nationalist and wants to spend a lot on the military. Bill Clinton for all his faults did not put the USA in deeper in debt via big military expenditures. Bill Clinton's administration was responsible for the housing crisis which killed growth and indirectly caused a situation which accumulated debt.

Russia and the USA are spending a lot of money on their respective militaries. It is "cold war light". The truth is that both countries face economic troubles ahead and cannot afford to waste money. Putin out of pride wants to restore a lost empire.

But the lion's share of US federal government debt creation is via entitlements. And Trump has expressed no interest in entitlements reform like social security, etc. Maybe he sees no need to. Maybe he thinks it is not politically possible. It probably is not politically possible. The baby boomer generation seems to have no reluctance to pile on debt and let their posterity pay the consequences.

Maybe Hillary Clinton would have spent as much as Trump if elected. Maybe not.

Trump is not a fiscal conservative though and there will be economic consequences. You cannot ignore basic rules of economics and not pay consequences. You cannot get away with spending more than you intake and get away with it. Conservative (talk) 01:29, 15 February 2017 (EST)

The Cold War was not an active war like the kind we see being completed now. Since 1977, the largest percentage of the GDP spent on defense was 6% from 1983 to 1988. Now it's at 2.8%-3.1%, the smallest since Fiscal Year 2001, ending September 30, 2001. If we're seeing a "cold war light", we should keep in mind the Cold War was pretty light to begin with! Trump also pledged to take the money out of NATO's hide if the alliance doesn't become more financially accountable.

Trump promised repeal and replace of ObamaCare, a program designed to cause government-controlled healthcare with all its attendant waste, abuse and non-market-pressured bureaucracy by using the finance of costly liberal mandates as stepping stones to bankrupt the medical insurance business. It would have been a personal vindication for Hillary if she were the one completing the designs of her HillaryCare project with similar aims she started in the 1990s. The Democrats tried to restructure a large sector of the economy to solve the alleged problem of the medically uninsured, which would have only cost about $60 billion (according to Rush Limbaugh) to give them free insurance without having to change anything.

Trump also promised to make deals with the pharmaceutical industry to get volume discounts where the government pays for their drugs.

I didn't want to jinx the election, but I guess now I can say that Obama destabilized the perceived risk of investment from making everyone wonder what strange liberal policy he would enact next, so there's a good chance we'll see GDP growth that will help reduce the debt.

If we get a wall, we'll also see fewer immigration-related expenses to feed, clothe, school, pay for medicine, jail or give Social Security to these immigrants and their families. VargasMilan (talk) 16:52, 15 February 2017 (EST)

From a material prosperity perspective, I am not hopeful about the Western World/developed world in terms of a 40-50 year forecast. Governments are racking up debt and you have aging populations. And if the developed world has a major problem, it will invariably spill over to the developing world.

Account promoted

Congratulations, your account has been promoted to include uploading privileges. For uploaded images, please be sure to provide:

Attribution to the license owner, unless it is in the public domain which means it can copied without restrictions (most images taken before 1964 are in the public domain, except as indicated otherwise, and all images before 1923 are in the public domain)

Thank you, Andy. I've had ideas for a few pictures to use in articles and to replace outdated ones, so I welcome this new access and am humbled as well. I'm familiar with copyright terminology, and your summary of Conservapedia upload policy comes as helpful. Again, thank you! VargasMilan (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2017 (EST)

Congratulations! Keep up the great work! --David B(TALK) 22:56, 7 March 2017 (EST)

IRC

Hello,
After some discussion (on my talk page and Andy's) it has been decided that I start an Internet Relay Chat channel for Conservapedia, since our old one has been dead since 2009. It is now registered and somewhat set up. I don't know if you use IRC or are interested in doing so, but anyone with block privileges on Conservapedia can also get block privileges on the new IRC channel. Unfortunately, IRC accounts are deleted after 30 days of being unused, so unless you plan on using the IRC at least once a month, there is probably not much point in registering. In any case, feel free to try it out--if you account gets deleted, we can always make another one later. If you are interested, please let me know!
The IRC channel is: #conservapedia @irc.accessIRC.net
Let me know if you have any questions or need anything else, also! --David B(TALK) 15:43, 11 April 2017 (EDT)

I haven't looked at the latter two items, but right-wingers gaining momentum on the internet is an interesting development. With nationalism gaining ground in Europe and 21st century desecularization occurring, the trend is bound to continue. Conservative (talk)

Those top two sites aren't being truthful; neither Alex Jones nor Paul Joseph Watson are conservative.

I saw one of Alex Jones' monologues; the broadcast was recommended as an especially good one. Jones' seemed to me like a minor league version of Limbaugh or Glenn Beck without the sudden reversals. But anyway, I was researching Jones for my list, and the first video I looked at directly from Jones' website answered my question. In the video at one point early on to state premises for some argument, he said, "I'm not a liberal; I'm not a conservative".

Paul Joseph Watson often has keen insight into the misrepresentations of left-wing politicians and their supporters, but he also has a sewer mouth and not just privately like locker-room talk but in interviews about his personal points-of-view conducted for the purpose of placing them on the internet.

If Twitter doesn't shape up, despite hosting many important political figures for years, they will be replaced by Gab. I've read stuff (regarding the bans you mentioned) that claimed Twitter for a long time systematically removed Trump's supporters' tweets. They were removed from the beginning of the comments section and more lower down too, which comports with the type of ban you mentioned (shadow-banning). I also read Twitter used to heavily promote their site's freedom of speech, which makes the individual-banning you also referred to seem so much the more a case of obstinance in the face of superior arguments.

But just because certain people and sites aren't conservative doesn't mean they can't be allies, and I like to think that way as it helps me to stay positive.

Unfortunately, the idea that conservatism is gaining momentum on the internet seems to be being used, true or not, simply as a springboard for Vice to dive into purporting that, in general, it is extremist characters that appeal the most to conservatives. VargasMilan (talk) 05:08, 13 July 2017 (EDT)

Conservatism is a subset of right-wing. You can be a right-winger without being a conservative.Conservative (talk) 05:06, 14 July 2017 (EDT)

Ya, but what's your point? All the conservative Democrats died off. Roughly 40% of the nation is conservative and wouldn't find a place in today's Democratic party.

Moderate Democrats ran against Hillary and Obama in the 2008 primaries, but went nowhere.

So much the greater would it be likely that the Democratic party would not support someone belonging to a whole party that was further to the right of these rejected moderates.

Conclusion: About 80% of the Right Wing must be conservative, and non-conservative right-wingers are perceived as extreme [within the bounds of conservatism], or at least strange, by conservatives, to whom extremists really don't appeal.

Secondly, if there were, say, Rockefeller Republicans, they would want to pretend to be mainstream Republicans rather than have their ideas rejected out of hand or declared out-of-range.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any Right-wing extremists [that is, extremism relative to the whole range of political attitudes; a designation shared with radicals or those capable of using unprovoked or planned violence], but the liberal media really needs there to be some. The closest thing to an extremist Right winger today doesn't have to do with having a compulsion to support their ideas by [the aforesaid] extremist measures or taking their ideas to the extreme, but a Right winger who works tirelessly to support the Right wing—an extremist in volume of support rather than in the aforesaid taking of extremist measures or following extremist ideas. Some examples of these extreme measures by Democrats are: voter fraud, unsealing court records of candidates or biased news reporting.

Thirdly, regarding investigating voter fraud, [practically] no one in the Right wing thinks it's a bad thing, but the Left wing will always have someone there to deny it's a problem. Voters pick up on that, and perhaps realize that the Left wing's opposition isn't really based on trying to apply a practice from the consideration of an abstract concept, but [simply on the belief] that it's always profitable for them to play the odds and assume that the devotion to ethics of conservatives and their imitators will nearly always outweigh their own.

And so on with the unsealing of court records and biased news reporting. Due to how outlandish the Left wing's real behavior is, they can bet their right-wing counterparts never would have considered stooping that low, which all-too-often allows the Left's abuses to pass by undetected, unprepared for.

For example, the Obama Administration undertook some unpopular measure that was discussed in the news. Soon afterwards, the Administration announced its Iran Treaty. It would have taken some time to read, but—for a while—the common assumption was that Obama was employing a carrot and stick approach. The great carrot of the Iran treaty would outshine the implementation of the stick to the minor points of contention that preceded it and make the Right Wing look petty. No one suspected that [the designs employed by President Obama] would make his approach look petty as [they] eventually did.

It was revealed that [President Obama's] strategy with the Iran deal was an attempt to overload the Right Wing with multiple [subtle] issues, together with those from the preceding measure, [and to claim a presence of radical imams in Iran, with no evidence, who shared in the Right wing in opposing the treaty. Thus President Obama and his State Department officers would be portrayed as practical centrists, and, in addition, the President's oppositional attempts would yield the prejudgment of the treaty by interested parties] rather than [the judgment of] the Right Wing [in taking] due consideration [of the merits of the treaty].

The alt-right is part of right-wing politics. They have about 2-3 main factions within them if I am not mistaken. I think the alt-right is growing. The alt-right helped get Donald Trump elected. Some of them left the Trump train after the election. The mainstream media demanded that Trump disavow the alt-right and he did. However, Trump may have no idea what the alt-right is.

The alt-right faction of right-wing politics is not part of conservatism if I am not mistaken. I think that they are separate ideologies. I do not know if you can plausibly be a conservative and also be a alt-right person. Maybe it depends how you define the words cconservative/onservatism. Conservative (talk) 05:56, 15 July 2017 (EDT)

"You came back too early"

This ([10]) is presumably a reference to my edit ([11]), shown in the article history as having taken place at 04:31, 20 May 2018. Now that history is apparently kept in UTC, so it would have been 23:31, 19 May in EST, and 00:31, 20 May EDT. My local time is EDT, so it was on 20 May. That's what my clock said, and I waited until it was the 20th.

Now, as you know, being "inactive" is not a promise never to edit, and a check of my contributions will show that I do occasionally make edits that I consider important even while I am nominally inactive. Like improving the Alan Turing article or explaining "night mode" to Shobson20.

Apparently you share Cons's passion over the issue of British potholes, and the implication of same for discussion of evolution. I'm glad to see that.